James Greensted

After 10 years of feeling unstable in his job, James Greensted, 27 from Wingham in Canterbury is now his own boss after qualifying as a driving instructor in February this year.

James left school at 16, and got a job working full time at his local Sports Direct store. Although he didn’t mind working in retail, and despite his couple of promotions, James didn’t feel the market or his job were stable and constantly worried what the future held for his career.

James comments: ‘’I was progressing nicely in my role at Sports Direct and was managing a team of 20 people but the company was going through quite a few changes and I felt unsure about the security of my job which was a constant worry.”

“Since my late teens I’ve always known that I wanted to do something in life that involved helping the public and / or teaching others. The career paths I originally had in mind were the police, the motor trade and driving instructing. They all appealed to me in different ways.”

When James was 22 he decided to not let any more time pass him by and started driving instructor training on the side of his job at Sports Direct. He failed the necessary tests three times however.

James says: “I was working late hours at the store and was tired when I got home, making it really hard to study and learn all the provided material.

“I knew if I wanted to qualify as an instructor, I would have to do it properly and I therefore quit my job at Sports Direct and signed up to the PDI instructor course with RED Driving School. I had done some research and found out this method of teaching had a better pass rate and RED had a very high success rate”.

James quit his job at Sports Direct in September 2014 and worked alongside his RED Driving School trainer for five months to learn all the required knowledge and pass all three of his instructor exams, fully qualifying him as a driving instructor.

James has now been teaching for two months and has passed six pupils already.

James continues: “I think being a young driving instructor has many advantages because many of my pupils are my age and I can therefore relate to them.

“Although it’s great being able to work your own hours and be your own boss, the best part about the job is definitely the satisfaction you get when pupils overcome their fears and pass their tests.

“I have built a lot of good working relationships which is also very satisfying. I would definitely recommend the job to anyone and think it is a career more young people should consider”.